December 4, 2006

Google has reportedly sent subpoenas to Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon.com in an effort to get information about their own participation in book-archiving operations that would directly compete with Google.

The issue is part of its legal fight against specific publisher and author groups suing Google over its planned book-scanning project.

Similar to what Amazon did two months ago, Yahoo has completely rejected Google's attempts to investigate its book-scanning operations. Other similar reports note how Yahoo has absolutely no interest in helping Google bolster its copyright infringement defense on that case.

Yahoo calls Google's subpoena a "brazen attempt to infiltrate its trade secrets" in snubbing the request. Amazon.com similarly called the subpoena "overly broad and unduly burdensome" about two weeks after receiving the legal missive from Google back in October.

The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers have already sued Google for its book-scanning intentions. Neither organization approves of Google's opt-out policy, requiring the copyright holder to ask Google not to scan or make any part of a book available for any reason.

The search giant has always said that such scanning is no different than its indexing of websites, and the presentation of snippets of text in response to a search is protected under accepted standards of fair use. In Google's opinion, having to search out every single copyright holder for permission would make the project impossible to accomplish.

However, if Google wants to convince the courts of its good and law-abiding intentions, it may have to do so without the help of its competitors. The legal battle is an interesting 180-degree reversal from early this year, when Google actually fought a DoJ (Department of Justice) subpoena.

Now, the company finds itself on the other side of the room and maybe doesn't care about it.

Source: Web Pro News